Review

The much needed essays in A House Divided, while calculated to
clarify the fundamental differences and similarities between analytic and
Continental philosophy, will certainly provoke impassioned responses rather
than serve as a manual for distinguishing the two traditions. Useful,
fascinating, illuminating, these essays offer genuine insight into the
evolution and history of the split in philosophy, but as valuable as these
essays may be, there are still some problems with this volume. First and
foremost is the selection of philosophers. Not Alvin Goldman, Roderick
Chisolm, Ernest Sosa, or Alvin Plantinga, but Carnap, Quine, Strawson, and
Davidson represent the analytic tradition in this book. This latter group
of philosophers, which holds that metaphysics is no more true than poetry
(Carnap: see Allen, 48); that concepts are cultural constructions instead of
prediscursive givens (Quine: see Matthews, 159); that "metaphysics is
subordinated to experience" (Strawson: see Stocker, 284); and that truth
is
a concept that needs to be "reinvented" in relation to its cultural
context
(Davidson: see Sandbothe, 253); is certainly much more amenable to the
Continental approach than the former group.

Put simply, the essays in this volume
are primarily Continental
or anti-analytic, which is not necessarily a problem. But because the volume
subtitle suggests a comparison of the two traditions, and not a clear
endorsement of one over the other, unsuspecting readers may be a bit
surprised when they discover that many of the essays seek to expose "the
intellectual limitations of the whole 'analytic' movement" (Allen,
55) or
to demonstrate that "the analytic tradition is intentionally bankrupt"
(Babich, 92). For instance, Richard Rorty, who is more anti-analytic than
Continental, claims that analytic philosophers treat the Concept like an
immutable Idea, an ahistorical precept "which philosophical analysis can
hope to pin down." By contrast, conversational (instead of Continental)
philosophers treat the concept like a person, "never quite the same twice,
always developing, always maturing" (21). Since Rorty rejects the existence
of "an overarching ahistorical framework" (27), he sees philosophy,
not in
terms of accurately signifying or representing metaphysical concepts, but in
terms of the conversation that philosophers can and do have with one another
(28). And for Rorty, only when we abandon the "barren scholasticism" (29)
of the analytic tradition will this conversational style of philosophy be
possible.

Barry Allen and Babette E. Babich follow Rorty's lead by also
casting analytic philosophy in an unflattering light. For Allen, analytic
philosophers have deluded themselves. Given their valorization of science
and logic, they naively assume that "the logical syntax of science" (52)
is
philosophically trustworthy. But were analytic philosophers able to
understand that knowledge is poiesis (55), a provisional and experimental
conception of the world, they would realize that behind science is a
"rationalist will-to-order" (54), a "Platonic-Christian subordination
of
thought to a 'duty to truth'" (55). To make knowledge dynamic
and
liberating, therefore, it is necessary to reject the analytic philosopher's
"totalitarianism of 'order'" (51) and to embrace the Continental
philosopher's idea of knowledge as creative experiment.

Babich pens perhaps
the most relentless and fascinating critique
of the analytic tradition. Analytic philosophers pride themselves on being
logical, rigorous, and clear, which is their not so subtle way of denouncing
Continental philosophers as illogical, sloppy, and incoherent. For Babich,
however, the analytic philosopher's virtues would be serious vices for
the
Continental philosopher. Humans and life are profoundly ambiguous, and
since Continental philosophers seek to articulate the messy conditions of
human living, "unclarity belongs to the essence of what it is that
Continental philosophers do" (92). In other words, analytic philosophers
may be rigorous and clear, but they have thereby "renounced contact with
the
world" (74), while Continental philosophers may reject systematic clarity,
but they have thereby established a more intimate connection with everyday
living.

Certainly not all the essays are as anti-analytic as Rorty's,
Allen's, or Babich's. Many compare and contrast the two traditions,
but
these tend to be more Continental than analytic. Indeed, two of the
strongest essays in the volume subtly suggest that Quine and Davidson could
be neatly placed in the Continental tradition. For example, Richard
Matthews intelligently and convincingly brings together Heidegger and Quine,
demonstrating that for both philosophers "Logical and empirical propositions
are primarily to be understood as pragmatic inventions," that "Neither
Quine
nor Heidegger think that one can provide any justification for the
background theory with which we interpret the world," and that "for
both
Quine and Heidegger there is no non-normative argument to be made for logic
or empirical science" (176). C. G. Prado writes a brilliant essay that
reads Searle and Foucault against one another. In this essay, Prado
cogently details Foucault's sophisticated and insightful critique of truth,
arguing that Foucault's work ultimately displaces Searle's view of "truth
conceived of as accurate representation" (206). And yet, while Foucault
triumphs over Searle, it is Davidson who is the real hero of this essay, for
he intelligently demonstrates why "nothing can count as a reason for holding
a belief except another belief" and therefore "rejects 'as unintelligible
the request for a ground or source of justification'" (207) for a
belief
system.

While it might seem that Matthews and Prado give the analytic
tradition its philosophical due, such is not the case if we note how the
first three essays of the volume distinguish analytic from Continental
philosophy. Truth as normative construct, concepts as historically
variable, the correspondence theory of truth as obsolete, logic and science
as ungroundable fictions; such is the stuff that Continental philosophy
is
made of, so by demonstrating that Quine and Davidson implicitly adopt such
views, Matthews and Prado implicitly make Quine and Davidsion Continental
philosophers.

This tendency to privilege Continental philosophy is obvious in
other essays. For instance, David R. Cerbone writes an astute analysis of
Husserl's inside-out phenomenological approach to consciousness and Daniel
Dennett's outside-in heterophenomenological approach, which is a
perspectival approach to consciousness seen from the multiple angles of "the
external theorizer" (120). While Dennett criticizes Husserl and
phenomenology, Cerbone convincingly demonstrates that Dennett does not
understand Husserl or phenomenology and that "the heterophenomenologist
stands in need of phenomenological (indeed Phenomenological) criticism"
(135). So for Dennett's science-based approach to consciousness to work,
he
must start with phenomenology, which is Continental philosophy's
intellectual point of departure. Mike Sandbothe focuses his analysis on the
longstanding debate between Rorty and Davidson about truth. For Sandbothe,
this debate models Rorty's view of philosophy as conversation, because
the
two philosophers have for two decades been "contributing to the creative
reinvention of our understanding of truth," and were analytic philosophy
to
attend to this debate, it could play a "potentially pioneering role in
reshaping our future understanding of ourselves" (255). Both Cerbone and
Sandbothe see much hope for analytic philosophy, so long as it adopts some
of Continental philosophy's fundamental premises.

The four remaining essays
admirably juxtapose the two
traditions, offering genuine insight into the strengths and weaknesses of
both approaches and suggesting ways to initiate dialogue and interaction.
Sharyn Clough and Jonathon Kaplan examine the possibility of social justice
"within a framework of foundationless knowledge" (140). Using Wittgenstein
and Davidson to articulate their position, they demonstrate how both writers
succeed in making strong "normative claims" despite their refusal
to appeal
to objective standards, because they "focus on the pragmatic preconditions
for communication [that] emerges from a linguistic perspective, a hallmark
of the so-called analytic tradition," but also how both move "towards
analyses of the particular cultural and social traditions we inherit, and
hence towards historically motivated understandings of the use of meanings
and knowledge-claims" (150), hallmarks of the so-called Continental
tradition. Barry Stocker offers a unique way of comparing the two
traditions. Strawson and Heidegger wrote books on Kant, and by analyzing
the way the two approach Kant, Stocker concludes that the decisive
differences between the two traditions "is in what is given priority":
"productive imagination and synthesis" for Continental philosophers and
"understanding and cognition" (285) for analytic philosophers. But for
Stocker, the most effective philosophy will incorporate both. Edward
Witherspoon concludes the book with an insightful essay on Carnap and
Heidegger. Focusing on Heidegger's concept of Nothing and Carnap's
critique
of Heidegger, Witherspoon identifies the central philosophical conundrum
that plagues both traditions. Prior to logic or thinking is the
undifferentiated "world." Given the way humans process information,
they
must conceive of the "world" as an entity, but such a conception
falsifies
the world. What then are the conditions for thought in light of our
awareness of thought's necessary falsification of that which it cognizes?
Put differently, how are we "to bring these conditions of thought together
as a thinkable unity" (319)? For Witherspoon, Continental and analytic
philosophers can find common ground in clarifying and then seeking to answer
these questions, questions that continue to plague both traditions. As for
initiating a productive dialogue between the two traditions, Bjorn Torgrim
Ramberg offers a model of understanding and interpretation based on the
writings of Davidson and Gadamer. For Ramberg, genuine philosophical
progress can occur, not by finding common ground between Continental and
analytic philosophy, but by highlighting the incongruities in the
motivations and objectives of both traditions. Central to Ramberg's view
is
that intellectual progress occurs, not by accumulating verifiable truths
that everyone can accept, but by using each tradition's constructed truths
"as steps on the way to new questions" (230). Such a way of philosophizing,
Ramberg contends, would enable us to "see things in richer and more nuanced
ways" (232).

While I certainly find the essays in this book valuable and
insightful, it would have been stronger had the title more clearly indicated
the anti-analytic or pro-Continental orientation of many of the essays or
had the book contained some anti-Continental or staunchly pro-analytic
essays. And yet, despite these limitations, this is certainly a book that
will benefit many philosophers in both traditions for many years to come.